Benefits and Work has obtained copies of “official sensitive” summaries of the responses to the “Modernising Support for Independent Living” Green Paper on proposed changes to Personal independence Payment (PIP).
The documents are for the attention of the Minister for Social Security and Disability and the Secretary of State, some of which are marked "Official sensitive".
Although the consultation was started under the Conservative government, Labour allowed it to continue after they took power, receiving six thousand more responses after the date of the election. However, they declined to publish any details of the results of the consultation and said they would not be responding to it.
At Benefits and Work we felt strongly that, after asking people to take the time and trouble to contribute, the government had a duty to share the results.
Initially, the DWP refused our request under the Freedom of Information Act to release any analysis of the consultation.
However, that decision was reversed on review, although substantial portions of some of the documents have been redacted.
Response numbers
The DWP received 16,071 responses to the consultation, made up of:
Postal: 134
Email: 1,593
Online individuals: 13,899
Online organisations: 445
Unknown organisations
The DWP summaries look at responses from organisations separately from individuals. However, they only consider 115 organisational responses, even though hundreds more contributed. This is because it appears that only those organisations who responded by letter or email could be identified.
As an accompanying letter to Benefits and Work from the DWP explained:
“445 responses were recorded on the online form as coming from an organisation. However, the form did not ask for the name of the organisation. Thus it is likely that this category includes some responses from individuals.”
The result is that hundreds of organisations, including Benefits and Work, are not listed amongst the organisations who responded to the consultation because the DWP forgot to ask for organisation names in their online form.
Instead, all those organisations responses have been included in the individual respondent summaries.
Vouchers
Probably the issue that most readers will be interested in is how the suggestions that PIP should be replaced by a catalogue, vouchers, receipts or a one-off grant were received.
Amongst organisations, the DWP have recorded that 0% agreed with any of these suggestions, though a small percentage – from 16% to 9% -were neutral in regard to them.
But overwhelmingly 92% of organisations disagreed with vouchers, 91% were against receipts, 87% were against a catalogue and 84% against a one-off grant. Comments included:
"People should be allowed to choose how they want to spend their PIP to best help themselves. They know what they need. The suggested proposals are unnecessarily bureaucratic & undermine a person's ability to make decisions about their own care & takes away their control.” Mencap
“Removing a cash payment removes the autonomy and independence of people to spend their PIP cash award freely.” - RNIB, Disability Rights UK
The DWP assessed individual responses in a different way, looking at themes rather than percentage agreement. Though overall, response to all the payment ideas was negative.
So for a voucher scheme, the most common theme highlighted in 45% of responses was that “it would identify individuals as benefit claimants, potentially leading to discrimination, exacerbated health conditions and reduced independence.”
One individual commented: “I hate the very notion of a voucher scheme for anyone, as it stigmatises people and restricts what they spend their money on. It's treating people like second-class citizens. I think the government should allow people (who are already stressed and ill) to spend their benefits on how they see fit.”
Catalogues were also not popular with 31% saying there were no benefits to the idea and 29% saying that it would remove individual choice as to how they spent their money.
29% of people thought the one-off receipts system would be too complex, whilst 30% of respondents pointed out that a one-off grants system would not be suitable for ongoing or variable expenses.
As one respondent remarked: “Most conditions that people claim PIP for are ongoing and potentially life long. A one off grant will cover some up front costs such as purchasing a wheelchair but wouldn't help with maintenance or with any of the regular day to day living expenses that are increased for those who have disabilities.”
Overwhelmingly negative
It is clear is that the vast majority of the suggestions for change made in this consultation were badly received. For example, few people thought that placing more emphasis on what condition a claimant has, rather than its functional impact, was a good idea.
But some ideas, such as claimants not needing to be reviewed if they have a specific health condition or disability, were responded to more positively.
Often however, the DWP’s analysis of individuals’ responses is imprecise and not entirely clear. This is almost certainly because this was a hasty written and badly designed consultation which was not properly tested before being released.
The failure to capture organisations’ names is just one example of errors that should have been picked up before the online consultation was ever published
So, when the DWP tried to analyse the results of the consultation, it has very obviously struggled to do so, not least because there were so many confusingly worded, open questions.
We’ve published all the documents we obtained so that readers can discover for themselves, as far as it is possible, what responses were given.
What is very clear is that the DWP will have to do far better with its forthcoming green paper on welfare reform, if it is not going to find itself back in court due to the inadequacy of its consultation process.
Downloads
Review of 1,600 individual consultation responses
This is an analysis of the responses by a sample of 1,600 people. Although the Agree/Disagree questions cover the responses by 14,344 people.
Charities and Organisations Green Paper Response Summary 16 August
This summary provides "a detailed review of 25 influential charity and professional organisations" responses.
Charities and Organisations Green Paper Response Summary 30 August
This summary provides a detailed review of all 115 organisational responses. Note: many organisations including Benefits and Work are not included here because the online questionnaire asked whether you were an individual or an organisation, but then failed to ask for the name of your organisation. So, the DWP collected what looks like responses from hundreds of unknown organisations.
Modernising Support for Independent living - Consultation Response Overview slides
This is a set of slides which review 350 individual responses, out of a total of 9,700 responses that had been received at the time the exercise was carried out.
Response topics
We're not entirely sure what this document is. It contains lists of general and granular topics
